


In Sleep

by IcedRum



Series: Pupcake Playlist [1]
Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Amnesia, F/F, Lucid Dreaming, Memories, Memory Loss, One Shot, Recovered Memories, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-16 07:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21032231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcedRum/pseuds/IcedRum
Summary: "Why am I so terrified of waking?She's gone and I feel I've been forsaken.In sleep is the only place I get to see her, get to love her."Delia gets flashes of something, or someone, that her memories can't quite reach.





	In Sleep

Moonlight streamed in through the open window as Delia lay in bed, willing herself to fall back asleep. She tried to relax the muscles in her face. Her eyes had  been screwed  up tight to block out any rays of light from the full moon outside. A soft gust blew in, sweeping the thin net curtain aside, and the woman released a long frustrated breath.

Giving up, she allowed her eyes to fall open and they adjusted to the low levels of light in the room.  She caught glimpse of the rolling Welsh countryside through the window, before the curtain settled back into place. The day's events circled through her mind on an endless loop.

At first she had been grateful of the pattern that she had fallen into - spending her nights running over everything that had happened during the day.  In the initial days after her accident she had struggled to recall memories from mere hours before. As such, having an entire day's worth of memory was a luxury that she treasured. Now,  however  , it had become less of a pleasure.  It wasn't that she didn't want the memories - Delia never wanted to go back to that fear of never knowing what was happening around her - but having memories to look back on allowed her to think and overthink on them .

It was hard, living a life that she didn't  fully  know. She found herself surrounded by people, by family and friends that had known her all her life. They had lifetimes of memories of her and she had scarce days, at best.  There were histories and in-jokes and family politics that she had to navigate her way through. Endless unseen obstacles. It was much too easy to slip up.  Say the wrong thing, forget the wrong moment or person, and an otherwise pleasant day ended in awkwardness and upset. Delia had lost count of the days in which she hurt the feelings of someone in her life.

So by night she thought. Her every action from the day swirling around in her mind. As best she could, Delia committed to memory what went right, what she did wrong, and how she must change tomorrow.  Only once she had exhausted herself with this analysis would her mind allow her to drift into slumber, cursing the accident that had put her in this terrible mess.

She couldn't remember the accident itself, yet. She was uncertain whether that memory was one that she actually wanted back. It had  been explained  to her what had happened though.  She could now  mechanically  recite the list of injuries that she had sustained as a result of  being knocked  from her bike. With time, much of the physical damage to her body had healed, at least as much as it was ever going to. A scattering of scars would now litter her skin as a permanent physical memory of the event.  Despite the disappearance of her physical injuries, she continued to count and repeat them, as a sort of mantra. It was as if doing so would somehow heal the damage done to her mind.

Maybe  it was working. It seemed so very impossible to tell whether anything specific helped.  Perhaps  time and hope were all that Delia was able to rely on when it came to regaining her memories. It was exhausting; she  was exhausted .

Even when Delia did manage to drift into sleep, it didn't seem to her that she was actually resting. It felt like the act of dreaming was yet another way for her mind to mend itself, to recall memories otherwise locked away. It was a fight, with no clear opponent.  Maybe  the opponent was her own mind. Each night she battled to gain any glimmer of her life before the accident. She was hungry, starving, for any detail, no matter how small or insignificant. There were so many questions; so many things that she ached to know. She had asked many. Some she received the answers to, from her parents and doctors.  Others were still a mystery; often questions about the life she had led in London that her family had not been privy to the details of. Some questions she hadn't even been able to voice aloud.

The hardest part of it all was waking. Those few, precious moments were one drifted between asleep and awake.  It was almost as if she could  physically  _ feel_ the memories from her dreams  being ripped  away from her as she shifted into wakefulness. She fought with every ounce of energy that she possessed to stretch those moments out. She clung on to any thoughts that she could. More often that not it was all in vain.  Her efforts served only to result in Delia feeling drained of any energy, before the day had even begun, and in possession of no  additional  memories .

Yet every so often, she managed to keep ahold of something. A small room with a single bed tucked into the corner. Eating fish and chips. Someone sobbing against her shoulder. A dusty vase. It was as if her past life was visiting her now, but only in her dreams; calling out, desperate to  be remembered. It was rare for her to be able to hold onto a  fully  formed memory.  Instead, she gained these fleeting impressions of her life, that she must try to piece together .

That night, she had awoken with the notion a person. A flash of red hair. Who was it? The smells of coffee and hair lacquer intermingled with cigarette smoke and bleach. Was this someone important to her, or a passing acquaintance from long, long ago? A heavy door creaking open in the night. The idea, that as sleep left her so would the memories of this person, was terrifying to Delia. A  freshly  cut key laying in her palm.  She  scarcely  had enough of an impression of them to form a person that she couldn't stand the though of their memory being gone from her mind so soon after returning to it. A small, folded letter with her name written on it,  being pressed  into her hand. She wanted to be able to force herself back into sleep for a chance to see this person, to get to know them again.

A hot swell of anger ran through Delia at the thought of these memories deserting her again.  With each fragment of a memory that Delia could bring together, she became more convinced that this person was someone that she cared for  deeply. She _would not_ forget them again. If she did, it wouldn't  simply  be another lost memory, but it seemed that it would be a betrayal to this person.  Whoever they were, Delia was becoming convinced that they were a person of significance to her. She had no logical reasoning for this assessment beyond the way that she was feeling in that moment. To not remember someone who meant so much seemed abhorrent. Delia was awash with guilt as she imagined what it must feel like to know a loved one had no recollection of you.

Delia faltered in her train of thought.  If this was somebody close to her - someone that Delia cared for, who felt the same way in return - why had she not heard from them  ? They hadn't visited or written to her, hadn't reached out to check in on her during this time of ill health. Delia's anger made way for a pang of sadness, desperation, loneliness.  Frustrated tears, heartbroken at the loss of something unknown, pricked at the corners of her eyes. There was so much that she didn't know. The overwhelming lack of knowledge built up until the tears fell from her eyes. She raised a hand to her mouth, to stifle a sob.

* * *

A thick fog pressed in close around Delia's body. The sun had only risen a short time ago and in the dawn light she could not see far along the cobbled street. There was someone beside her as she moved forward but she saw no one else. Others must be nearby though. She could hear voices and movement; the morning's hustle and bustle a few streets away. Her fingers brushed against those of the person next to her as they strolled through the city. Without conscious thought, Delia shifted to press her palm against the other's. Their fingers interlocked. Delia brought her other hand across her body to hold onto her companions arm. Feeling relaxed, she leaned over to rest her head against their shoulder. Delia loved this moment, this feeling.  The rough texture of a thick woollen jacket, to ward off the morning's chill, was under her fingers and cheek, her other hand enclosed in the gentle warmth of another's. Something niggled at the back of Delia's mind.

Something wasn't quite right. She couldn't put her finger on it though; if asked, she would have said that this moment was perfect. She had nowhere she had to be and nothing that she had to do. Right now, the only thing required of her was to enjoy this morning and the presence of the person beside her. Their fingers squeezed Delia's, thumb brushing against the back of her hand.

This person. Who was walking beside Delia?

The desire to look upon the person beside her was so strong that it overtook all other feeling. Delia received no resistance as she pulled the pair of them to a halt. She released her grip and turned to step in front of the other, facing them. The rising sun had made its way high enough that it's rays fell over the other's shoulder, dazzling Delia. It preventing her laying her eyes upon what she wanted to see. She blinked before opening her eyes more  slowly , to adjust to the bright light.

Vast green fields stretched out before her, with a backdrop of mountains and framed by her childhood bedroom window.  Delia could have screamed as she found herself alone and looking out across the rural landscape. She rolled over, pressing her face into her pillow as she let out an agonised growl of desperation.

She'd had the dream before. Everything about it felt so familiar. The city streets Delia presumed to be in London.  In the dream she felt  perfectly  at home so she could only conclude that it was an area of the city that she frequented often. She wondered what she liked to spend her free time doing. Did she have hobbies or interests that kept her occupied, did she have many friends and what were they like? Most of all, she wanted to know who walked beside her in this dream. This dream that was becoming as familiar to her now, as she supposed the city streets had been to her before.

Over the course of many nights she had collated fragments of recollections about them.  There was a picnic that they had shared together, a conversation about the engagement of a mutual friend, the burn of a mouthful of whisky hitting the back of her throat. She had not yet  properly _seen_ this mystery person in her dreams, though not from a lack of trying. That night's dream had been the closest that she have ever got. She was so certain that if she could  just  see their face then the rest might fall into place.  Despite the lack of a face to put to this person's memory, Delia had become convinced that each of these snippets belonged to the same loved on. This conviction was due to the one common theme with all the memories; the way that they made her feel.  On the mornings that Delia had been dreaming of them, she spent her first moments of wakefulness in a blissful, warm and secure feeling of love.

For a time, Delia wondered if it might be a boyfriend that she was dreaming of. It would make sense, she decided, that she might not have heard from a male suitor if the romance had been new. He likely wouldn't have her parents' address and, as such, no way of communicating with Delia. He may not have even known about the accident.  Delia tried to imagine this man, what he might be doing and thinking upon the realisation that Delia had up and vanished from his life. Something about the image didn't sit right with her.  No boyfriend that she could conjure up in her mind would correlate with the memories that she had of this person.

Delia found herself yearning for sleep; not from any _need_ for it but  purely  from the desire to get another opportunity to fall into the memories of her person. She felt as if she was being called to, living through each day until she could  be visited by  night.  Sometimes the dreams  were tinged  with sadness or heartbreak, sometimes longing or anxiousness, but always she felt loved. There was nothing that she wished for more than to set eyes upon that face.

* * *

As it was, finally finding that face amongst her scattered memories was both a blessing and a curse.

The blessing came from the joy that Delia found in sparkling blue eyes, and lips that pulled into a knowing smirk as  easily  a wide smile. The curse, it seemed, was that Delia's long-dismissed guess of 'boyfriend' had not been too far from the mark.

Delia had been correct about the fact that once she could recall the woman's face, a whole lot more began to come back.  She couldn't remember everything yet, but she'd regained enough to understand what their relationship had been.  It explained why Delia hadn't heard from her at least, with the pair of them having to keep what they were to one-another a secret to all those around them. It meant, as well, that Delia couldn't find a way to bring the woman up in conversation to her family. She couldn't ask whether she knew about Delia's accident and where she was, couldn't ask for a way to contact her. Delia couldn't even ask to know the woman's name.

Her only solace came in sleep.

In her dreams, it didn't matter that Delia didn't know her name, or where she came from, or how she and Delia ended up together. All that mattered in her dreams was that they were together. For an all too short handful of hours each night, Delia could look into her eyes. When she was lucky, she would be able to hold her hand, run her fingers through red locks of hair, or sneak a yearning kiss. She could be with her and love her, knowing that when she woke, it would all be gone. When the dream that her memories had conjured - for Delia's mind's eye alone - was over, she would awake again. Alone.


End file.
